Silver Lining: Why Dems' Big Loss Could Pave The Way For Obama Nominees

Dems have little reason to be happy about this month's election results. Gone for at least two years -- and probably more -- are their hopes of passing anything like the historic legislation they enacted during this Congress. Additionally starting next year they will have to contend with ascendant adversaries in the House, bent on unraveling those accomplishments and embarrassing President Obama with aggressive use of subpoena power.

But Democrats still control the Senate. So while the House passes legislation the Senate has no interest in considering, Majority Leader Harry Reid will have much more time, if he chooses, to devote to confirming a large backlog of Obama's judicial and executive branch nominees -- particularly numerous non-controversial picks, who will have to be renominated next year.

That's certainly what advocates would like to see.

"Reid should concentrate Floor time on must pass bills, message and other votes that highlight differences and important matters that are or should be non-controversial, including confirming lifetime federal judges," Glenn Sugameli, an advocate for swift judicial confirmations, tells TPM. "All of Obama's nominees to circuit and district courts have had the support of their home-state Republican and Democratic senators and the vast majority have been non-controversial nominees who have been approved by the Judiciary Committee without objection and approved unanimously when they finally receive usually long-delayed Floor votes."

"If one or more Republican senators force cloture votes on consensus nominees, they will accurately be seen as mindlessly obstructionist," Sugameli says. If they do not, nominees will be confirmed quickly."

That's not to say that scores of judicial vacancies will be filled immediately, or that President Obama will (finally) see his executive branch fully staffed. Democrats will have a much smaller majority of 53 Senators, and any single Republican will be able to force Democrats to round up 60 votes and spend nearly a week of floor time to get a nominee confirmed.

"I would remind you that actions have consequences and we're going to have to deal with what the House sends us and, at the other end, it's three days plus [per filibuster] and all the days add up," says Reid spokesman Jim Manley.

But one of the biggest hurdles nominees faced this year was a thick legislative agenda: they were literally crowded out by the sheer volume of routine, emergency, and history-making legislation. Next year that won't be an issue. And that has some advocates seeing a silver lining around the midterm election results.

About The Author

Brian Beutler is TPM's senior congressional reporter. Since 2009, he's led coverage of health care reform, Wall Street reform, taxes, the GOP budget, the government shutdown fight and the debt limit fight. He can be reached at brian@talkingpointsmemo.com